Posts Tagged ‘Politics’

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Half the fun of politics simulators is that you get to mess about and see how silly you can be without your head ending up atop a pike. Every four years, Stardock simulate the US presidential election with their Political Machine, but I don’t know if it’s worth the effort this time. What a lineup of jokers, eh? Games couldn’t be sillier than the real race, right? Yeah? Little bit of politics there ladies and gentlemen, little bit of politics.

If you fancy hitting the campaign trail, The Political Machine 2016 [official site] is out… in Early Access? Ooh, this modern world!

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When we think about how politics tends to affect video games, it tends to be along the lines of ratings, censorship, and bans. The effects of economic sanctions don’t often come to mind. After Russia annexed and took control of the Ukranian peninsula of Crimea in 2014 – which the United Nations General Assembly doesn’t recognise – the USA put many sanctions on the area. In short, a lot of US businesses pulled out. This included game companies, impacting everything from League of Legends to Steam for folks in Crimea.

A fascinating article on Kotaku UK goes over the situation and how it changes games for folks. It’s a good read.

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On Monday night, I tried my best to look like a respectable member of society and popped along the Houses of Parliament to attend Labour MP Tom Watson‘s discussion about the place and perception of videogames in UK society. A gathering of politicians, educators, games industry folk and random interested onlookers (hullo!), it was a fascinating few hours. Given the knee-jerk hullabaloo we’re so used to from mainstream media coverage of games, it was surprising to the point of surreality to be amidst politicians, hearing discussion of the form on the sort of level we have, say, here. Obviously, games have some distance to go to obtain to achieve full societal acceptance – even though that has clearly little-to-no effect on the ever-escalating success of the bigger titles – but that this kind of discussion is at least happening is a cheering sign.Read the rest of this entry »

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Game Politics reports that Germany’s sixteen Interior Ministers have asked the Bundestag to ban the production and distribution of violent video games. This would mean violent videogames could not be purchased at retail or online in Germany, and that companies like CryTek would have to leave the country to continue production of their games. (That, or come up with creative solutions. Perhaps replace all the guns with vomiting cats? Would flicked elastic bands work, or do they come under violence?) Some more thoughts on this beyond the jump.

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Nothing inspires confidence like a politician making a declaration about the content of videogames.

It appears the latest reason to namedrop children’s most dangerous pastime is their incorrigible habit of containing knives, according to our Dear Leader. PM Gordon Brown has declared that as part of his total ban on carrying knives, he wants to see blades disappearing from games too. He explained to The Sun,

“I am very worried about video and computer games. No one wants censorship or an interfering State. But the industry has some responsibility to society and needs to exercise that.”

What I am hoping is that BioShock treats the theory of individualism with proper respect. It would be very disheartening if BioShock were to equate individualism with an endless desire to prove oneself superior to others (this being a form of conformist parasitism Rand referred to as Second-Handing), free-market capitalism with making profit as an end-in-itself, or advocate the fallacious notion that laissez-faire is a zero-sum game. As you are obviously aware, Objectivism is often assumed to be wrong, evil, or an engine of societal collapse and disintegration, regardless of the historical evidence in favor of many Objectivist-approved principles.